


Nothing but the Ghosts Remain

by Welfycat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: beacon_hills, F/M, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem was that Peter had never left, not even now that he had his own body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing but the Ghosts Remain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Character Focus challenge (Lydia Martin) for the Beacon Hills Land Comm.  
> Content Notes: Post season 2. Response to trauma incurred by mental possession.

Lydia hadn't realized that she'd drifted off until she woke with a slight jolt. At some point Jackson had pulled up the blankets over both of them, their bare shoulders peeking out from her lavender sheets and Jackson's arm wrapped around her. She could feel his chest against her back, the rise and fall as he breathed, and their legs were tangled together. Jackson had never once complained when she put her bare feet against his legs, using him as her own personal heater, and now that he was a werewolf he was like a radiator. She snuck an arm out from under the blankets and reached for her cellphone, intending to check the time. It didn't matter so much, her mom was out of town and they didn't have to be anywhere tomorrow, but she was having thoughts about getting up to brush her teeth and wash her face. If it was after midnight she wasn't going to bother, but they'd tumbled into her bed at some point after eating dinner and she didn't think they'd slept for that long.

She never got to check the time, her eyes drawn from the cellphone clutched in her hands to the dark shadow in the corner of her room. Her chest started to hurt immediately and she reminded herself to breathe. He wasn't real. He couldn't be. The shadowy figure stepped forward and the moonlight streaming in from the window illuminated his face. Lydia could remember kissing him, leaning against him, closing her eyes as she fell into his warmth. It wasn't the same face now, of course, but the defining features were still there and his eyes were the same.

"Why are you here?" she asked, abandoning her cellphone on the pillow as she tugged the sheet up so her breasts were covered.

Peter shrugged, the movement graceful, and then he smiled. "Why wouldn't I be?" he countered.

Lydia swallowed but didn't look away. She didn't trust that there wouldn't be fangs or claws when she looked back. She had seen Peter Hale, of course. The real Peter Hale, the one who had come back from the dead and was now living and breathing in his own body. What she still hadn't decided was if this Peter, the shade who had been left behind in her mind, was real as well, or if the cracks formed by the last few months were now too big to be repaired. She had thought she was going crazy, left trembling and crying when there was nothing there that anyone else could see. She'd thought that it was a result of the terrifying attack that had nearly killed her on the night of the winter formal, and that her mind would put itself to rights eventually. And then she'd learned that werewolves were real and that it wasn't just her who was crazy, but the whole damn town.

Of course, crazy was relative. Who was to say that what was real wasn't crazy? Maybe lies and fiction were the only places that were sane anymore.

Disregarding all of that, Lydia thought the biggest problem was that she couldn't trust her own mind and senses. Out of everything Peter had took from her, that was what she missed the most. Questions came faster than a flood, the first being how long had Peter been there watching them. She supposed that didn't matter if Peter had taken up residence in her mind - he would have seen everything, heard everything that she'd thought. And if this Peter wasn't real, then what he'd seen didn't matter anyway. It still rankled, the thought of Peter watching her and Jackson, the idea that he had drawn pleasure from seeing them together.

"What do you want?" she asked. And wasn't that the question from the start. It was all she'd been left with, her only place of bargaining. What could she do that would get him to go away and leave her alone? She almost wouldn't care if he was there, lurking from inside her head, as long as she didn't have to know.

Peter walked to her desk, peering out the window and drawing his fingers across the papers she'd left out. "Oh, I don't know. Biding my time, I suppose."

Lydia did close her eyes at that, her chest constricting painfully as she wondered what he could possibly want of her now. She was tired of being his vessel, tired of being his hands and his will. She didn't want to know what he was planning, not when she would once again be helpless to stop him. "You should leave," she told him, not honestly expecting her words to have any effect.

"But when have I ever done what a person _should_ do?" Peter said, his gaze resting on where Jackson's arm was still resting over Lydia's side. "Should is overrated, don't you think? You're never quite what you should be either, are you Lydia?"

And Peter was right. She was smarter than she should be, and she knew it. Smart enough to see through the bullshit that her parents threw around about love and family. Smart enough that she could have every girl in school want to be her and every boy want her, and yet never able to make a meaningful connection with any of them. And she was immune, when she should have been dead or a werewolf - when she had somehow let Peter into her mind instead of becoming stronger. She had supposedly saved Jackson, and yet she knew that Jackson hadn't been saved at all. That maybe Jackson would have been lucky to have died that night.

Lydia slid out from Jackson's arm and out from under the covers, ignoring the way Peter assessed her nudity and clearly found something he liked. "Get out," she said, her voice unwavering as she stood a mere few feet away from the demon werewolf that was haunting her mind. She wasn't sure what would happen if he pulled his claws and fangs on her, if he could actually physically hurt her or if he could only drive her to cause harm to herself. In either case, she was done. She was so far past done.

Peter rose his eyebrows. "Make me."

"Get out!" Lydia shouted, and this time her body was trembling.

"Lydia?" Jackson asked. He landed next to her - alarmed, his eyes glowing and his claws out - and she screamed.

She wasn't afraid of Jackson. She wasn't afraid of his claws or his fangs, she wasn't afraid that he was going to bite her or tear her apart. This was a scream of frustration and rage. And it was a scream of fear that she was going to spend the rest of her life with Peter Hale watching her and commenting and looking at her with that satisfied, smug smile.


End file.
